“The Father of Survival Horror”: Shinji Mikami, Procedural Rhetoric, and the Collective/Cultural Memory of the Atomic Bombs Ryan Scheiding
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Document generated on 09/29/2021 8:32 p.m. Loading The Journal of the Canadian Game Studies Association “The Father of Survival Horror”: Shinji Mikami, Procedural Rhetoric, and the Collective/Cultural Memory of the Atomic Bombs Ryan Scheiding Volume 12, Number 20, Fall 2019 Article abstract Video game “authors” use procedural rhetoric to make specific arguments URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1065894ar within the narratives of their games. As a result, they, either purposefully or DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1065894ar incidentally, contribute to the creation and maintenance of collective/cultural memory. This process can be identified within the directorial works of Shinji See table of contents Mikami that include a set of similar general themes. Though the settings of these games differ, they include several related plot elements. These include: 1) depictions of physical and emotional trauma, 2) the large-scale destruction of Publisher(s) cities, and 3) distrust of those in power. This paper argues that Mikami, through processes of procedural rhetoric/ authorship, can be understood as an Canadian Game Studies Association “author” of video games that fall into the larger tradition of war and atomic bomb memory in Japan. (Also known as hibakusha (bomb-affected persons) ISSN literature). As a result, his games can be understood as a part of Japan’s larger collective/cultural memory practices surrounding the atomic bombings of 1923-2691 (digital) Hiroshima (6 August 1945) and Nagasaki (9 August 1945). In the case of Mikami, the narratives of his games follow what Akiko Hashimoto labels as the Explore this journal “Long Defeat”, in which Japanese collective/cultural memory struggles to cope with the cultural trauma of the Pacific War (1931-1945). To illustrate this argument the paper engages in a close reading of Mikami’s Resident Evil, Dino Cite this article Crisis, Resident Evil 4, Vanquish and The Evil Within and identifies tropes that are common to Japanese war memory and hibakusha literature. Scheiding, R. (2019). “The Father of Survival Horror”: Shinji Mikami, Procedural Rhetoric, and the Collective/Cultural Memory of the Atomic Bombs. Loading, 12(20), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.7202/1065894ar Copyright, 2019 Ryan Scheiding This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/ This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ Loading… The Journal of the Canadian Game Studies Association Vol 12(20): 1-14 http://loading.gamestudies.ca “The Father of Survival Horror”: Shinji Mikami, Procedural Rhetoric, and the Collective/Cultural Memory of the Atomic Bombs Ryan Scheiding Concordia University [email protected] Abstract Video game “authors” use procedural rhetoric (Bogost, 2007) to make specific arguments within the narratives of their games. As a result they – either purposefully or incidentally – contribute to the creation and maintenance of collective/cultural memory. This process can be identified within the directorial works of Shinji Mikami which include a set of similar general themes. Though the settings and genres of these games differ, they include several related plot elements. These include: 1) depictions of physical and emotional trauma; 2) the large-scale destruction of cities; and 3) distrust of those in power. This paper contends that Mikami, through the use of procedural rhetoric, can be understood as an author of video games that fall into the larger tradition of war and atomic bomb memory in Japan. To illustrate this, the paper engages in a discursive cultural reading (Hutchinson, 2019b) of Mikami’s Resident Evil, Dino Crisis, Resident Evil 4, Vanquish and The Evil Within to identify themes and plot elements that are common to Japanese war memory and atomic bomb literature. Ultimately, the paper argues that his games can be understood as a part of Japan’s ever-evolving collective/cultural memory practices surrounding the atomic bombings of Hiroshima (6 August 1945) and Nagasaki (9 August 1945). The narratives of his games follow what Hashimoto (2015) labels as the “Long Defeat”, in which Japanese collective/cultural memory struggles to cope with the cultural trauma of the Pacific War (1931-1945). Furthermore, Mikami’s games serve as an example of how Japanese collective/cultural memory continues to incorporate new media and non-hibakusha authors into memory discourses as hibakusha age and, as a result, access to first-hand accounts of the bombs is gradually lost. Author Keywords Cultural memory; hibakusha; atomic bomb; Japan; authorship Introduction From August 7-21, 2019 the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum held an exhibit with a simple 2 title: Atomic Bomb Painting Exhibition. It housed various paintings created by Japanese high school students depicting numerous aspects of the atomic bombs that had been described to them by hibakusha.1 English reading visitors were greeted with a plain one-page poster describing the exhibit: The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum has been implementing the Atomic Bomb Drawings Project since 2004. The main objectives of this project are to convey the reality of the damages and suffering caused by the atomic bomb, and to pass down the atomic bomb experience to further generations. After listening to the hibakusha’s experiences, the students collected reference materials and began their sketches. They continued revising their drawings based on feedback by the hibakusha until they finally completed their works. Throughout this process, the students wracked their brains in order to draw scenes that were beyond their imaginations. These Atomic Bomb Drawings will be used by the hibakusha when they give their A-bomb testimony so that listeners such as students on school trips can have a better understanding of the experience that is being shared. Apart from this museum project, our school has been working on A-bomb pictures. Students, who had no experiences of war, repeat direct personal dialogues with hibakushas and come to experience for themselves what they went through. Hibakushas are advancing in age and it is an urgent necessity to inherit their experiences. We are trying to make as many pictures as we can. (Exhibition Poster) The final lines of this description are particularly important, as Japanese collective/cultural memory of the atomic bombs faces new challenges seven decades after the events in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Namely, hibakusha are aging and, as a result, access to their firsthand experiences is gradually deteriorating. The Atomic Bomb Painting Exhibition is an early attempt at creating new media pieces to supplement (and eventually replace) the memories of hibakusha. This is an important undertaking, but the question remains: are there other manifestations of these types of collective/cultural memory activities within Japanese culture and media? This paper examines the directorial works of Shinji Mikami contending that, due to the themes and plot elements found within his video games, they can be read as a contribution to atomic bomb literature and Japanese collective/cultural memory.2 Mikami, sometimes referred to as “The father of survival horror” (Reiner, 2014), is a renowned video game director and producer best known for his work on series’ such as Resident Evil, Dino Crisis and The Evil Within. This paper argues that Shinji Mikami can be viewed as an author of video games that are part of the larger Japanese atomic bomb literary genre and Japanese collective/cultural memory. This is accomplished in three major parts. The first section examines relevant literature to define authorship in the context of game studies and Mikami’s own career. The second section introduces collective/cultural memory theory and atomic bomb literature as a way of highlighting 3 important tropes of the genre (i.e. depictions of physical and emotional trauma, the large-scale destruction of cities, and distrust of those in power) and establishing how these are used as the basis of contemporary media. The third section applies this theoretical framework to case studies of Mikami’s games, namely Resident Evil (1996), Dino Crisis (1999), Vanquish (2010) and The Evil Within (2014). Ultimately, the paper places Mikami’s works within Japanese collective/cultural memory of the atomic bombs, arguing that Mikami and his video games play an important role in introducing atomic bomb memory to video game players and audiences. Defining Authorship The term author and ensuing authorship of a work has become an ambiguous term. This is an issue that has been written about extensively, with reasonable arguments being made for the abolishment of the author function altogether. For example, Roland Barthes (1967), in his influential work The Death of the Author, argues that “[to] give a text an Author is to impose a limit on that text, to furnish it with a final signified, to close the writing” (paragraph 6). He maintains that it is the culmination of capitalist ideology that has attached the greatest importance to the person of the author. As a result, instead of relying upon the importance of the author/author’s point of view, a shift should occur in literary critique that privileges the reader and their interpretations over the author. In a similar vein, Michel Foucault (1984) contends that the author is a discursive function that is indicative of power structures within a society. In his words, “[the] author function is therefore characteristic of the mode of existence, circulation, and functioning of certain discourses within a society” (p.108). Thus, within this interpretation, the author is an individual that has been granted power by pre-established discursive practices and structures of power.